A surprising scene.
The funding circle has realized that Nova Fusion introduced at this time that it has accomplished a 700 million yuan Series Angel+ financing spherical. Looking by way of the listing of buyers, the lineup is impressively luxurious: Alibaba, as an early-stage investor, continued to make a major further funding. New buyers corresponding to Meituan Longzhu, Hillhouse Capital, Shangqi Capital, Huichuan Industrial Investment, and Jiukun Venture Capital made a grand entry. Well-known establishments like Legend Capital, GaoRong Venture Capital, and Photosynthetic Venture Capital continued to follow-on make investments.
So far, Nova Fusion has accomplished two rounds of financing totaling 1.2 billion yuan in only one 12 months since its institution, setting a brand new file for the financing scale and pace of home personal nuclear fusion enterprises in the early stage.
This is an outstanding undertaking in the enterprise capital circle. Founded in Shanghai in April final 12 months, the individual on the helm of Nova Fusion is a scientist born in the Nineteen Sixties, Guo Houyang, a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS Fellow) and a specially-appointed knowledgeable of the Chinese authorities. He is the pioneer inventor of the FRC – SMR modular expertise, has led the Sino-US cooperation in magnetic confinement nuclear fusion, served as an knowledgeable on the ITER International Science and Technology Advisory Committee, a member of the Magnetic Confinement Expert Group of the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology, and the chief of a serious fusion undertaking. He is undoubtedly a top-notch knowledgeable in nuclear fusion.
Remember a joke in the trade: If you ask a scientist at any time when controllable nuclear fusion shall be realized, the reply you may at all times get is: “It’s still 50 years away.” Now, it is time to change this reply.
Established in Shanghai, China’s Nuclear Fusion Dream Team Is Here
Guo Houyang is undoubtedly the soul of Nova Fusion.
In 1965, he was born in Gushi County, Henan Province. He graduated from Hefei University of Technology with a bachelor’s diploma after which entered the Institute of Plasma Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, acquiring a grasp’s diploma in 1988. After commencement, Guo Houyang went to check on the Institute of Energy and Materials of the University of Quebec in Canada, incomes a doctorate in 1993. He was then employed by the Canadian Nuclear Fusion Research Center.
Since then, Guo Houyang’s profession has spanned the biggest fusion analysis establishments on three continents. He is without doubt one of the few scientists with profound data and management expertise in each the Tokamak and FRC main expertise routes.
Later, Guo Houyang served because the experiment chief of the world’s largest Tokamak system, JET (Joint European Torus) in the UK, main cutting-edge physics experiments. Since 1999, he has been the chief analysis scientist on the University of Washington in the United States and the overall chief of the FRC experiment. Years later, he joined the American firm TAE because the chief scientist, chief experimental strategist, and director of the experimental operation division, totally liable for the FRC fusion R & D undertaking. After that, he participated in the institution of the national-level DIII – D Tokamak Boundary Plasma and Materials Research Center in the United States and served because the director of this analysis heart.
Guo Houyang additionally served because the director of the well-known EAST Tokamak analysis laboratory in China. In 2021, he returned to China to start out a enterprise with greater than 30 years of technical and expertise accumulation in the fields of FRC and Tokamak, aiming to advertise the commercialization of nuclear fusion in China. He has served because the vice-president/chief expertise officer of ENN Group, the co-founder and chief expertise officer of Energy Singularity, and straight led the plasma physics experiment R & D staff.
Until April 2025, Guo Houyang formally based Nova Fusion in Shanghai. It is the primary home enterprise specializing in the R & D and industrialization of miniaturized and distributed controllable nuclear fusion expertise (FRC – SMR), filling the hole in this subject in China.
When speaking about why he selected the FRC – SMR route, Guo Houyang stated bluntly, “It is based on a triple judgment of the fundamental contradictions in fusion commercialization, the technological development trend, and the urgent market demand.”
Specifically, the core innovation of FRC – SMR lies in the ingenious mixture of the “magnetic confinement” characteristic of the Field-Reversed Configuration (FRC) and the “inertial confinement” characteristic of magnetic compression. First, utilizing the field-reversed configuration as the essential magnetic confinement type, totally different from the complicated toroidal magnetic subject of the Tokamak, FRC adopts a compact cylindrical magnetic subject configuration. “You can imagine a mineral water bottle wrapped with coils outside.” This very simple construction lays a stable basis for the miniaturization and financial effectivity of the system.
Second, by utilizing magnetic compression expertise to extend the density and break by way of the edge of fusion circumstances, the system doesn’t have to depend on ultra-high-power lasers. At the identical time, by way of modular design, it successfully avoids a collection of key technical challenges confronted by the Tokamak and laser fusion paths. “Thus, the construction cost and R & D cycle of the nuclear fusion power plant can achieve double significant breakthroughs, and it is expected to enter the commercialization stage earlier in a shorter time.”
Guo Houyang identified: “More importantly, this route has been verified. In the United States, our peer company Helion has achieved a plasma temperature of 150 million degrees Celsius and has signed a power purchase agreement with Microsoft. This just shows that the FRC route is not ‘armchair theory’ but a mature route on the verge of commercialization. If others can do it, we can do it too, and we will do it better.”
With a transparent technical route, Guo Houyang rapidly assembled a full-scale R & D staff of greater than 40 individuals. The core members all come from world-class fusion laboratories, and all key positions are totally staffed, laying a stable expertise basis for technological breakthroughs. This staff not solely has scarce data in the FRC – SMR subject, filling the home expertise hole in this route, but in addition has wealthy engineering expertise. The core staff members have received the Second Prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award on common, and their capabilities cowl your complete chain from bodily design, system development, energy provide, analysis to high quality management.
“They are all dedicated entrepreneurs. The pure entrepreneurial spirit and high-efficiency execution they show are the core driving force for the rapid progress of our R & D roadmap,” Guo Houyang sighed.
Relying on this, Nova Fusion has made main breakthroughs from scratch in a number of core key expertise fields inside only a few months of its institution, overlaying core methods corresponding to high-power all-solid-state switches, modular strong-magnetic subject magnet design, large-caliber quartz tube manufacturing, and nanosecond-level management and acquisition.
Then, a milestone second arrived – the development manufacturing unit of the “Nova One” fusion system formally began lately, marking that Nova Fusion has formally entered the engineering implementation stage from expertise R & D.
Standing at a brand new start line, Guo Houyang stated: “Our goal is clear, and the route is well-defined. We firmly believe that as long as we work together with one heart and one mind, we will surely hand in an answer worthy of the times.”
1.2 Billion, Creating an Angel Round Record
In only one 12 months since its institution, Nova Fusion has left a deep impression on the enterprise capital circle.
Remember in August final 12 months, Nova Fusion introduced the completion of a 500 million yuan angel-round financing. The buyers included well-known establishments and vital strategic buyers such because the Zhongguancun Independent Innovation Special Fund of the Social Security Fund (managed by Legend Capital), Legend Capital, Photosynthetic Venture Capital, GaoRong Venture Capital, Huakong Fund, Mingzhi Venture Capital, Yunqi Venture Capital, and Lingang Science and Technology Innovation Investment. At that point, the funding circle confirmed with a number of insiders that Alibaba, because the main investor, additionally participated in this spherical of financing.
Now, let’s flip our consideration to this Series Angel+ financing – “Internet industry capital + top financial capital + state-owned innovation funds” have gathered in this various funding lineup, a scene not often seen in earlier personal nuclear fusion financings.
Among them, Alibaba, as an early-stage investor, made a major further funding once more, demonstrating its long-term confidence in Nova Fusion’s technical route and commercialization prospects. Meituan Longzhu made its first capital funding in the nuclear fusion observe, additional confirming the strategic worth of fusion vitality as the final word vitality in the AI period.
More importantly, the collective entry of Internet giants not solely brings considerable funds for nuclear fusion R & D but in addition permits the direct connection between fusion vitality and AI utility situations, constructing an industrial bridge for the next industrial implementation in situations corresponding to AI information facilities, cloud computing bases, and clever industrial parks.
When speaking about this spherical of financing, Wang Xinyu, a associate of Meituan Longzhu, believes that vitality and knowledge are the 2 important traces of human civilization improvement. At the underside, vitality is the final word limiting issue. On the best way to AGI, the supply of vitality has turn into the core bottleneck. FRC is appropriate for the ability demand of future ultra-large-scale and quickly increasing AI super-computing facilities. “We believe that Nova Fusion will grow into the next great enterprise in the history of human energy.”
In the view of the Legend Capital staff, Nova Fusion focuses on the small fusion reactor (FRC – SMR) technical route. With its speedy iteration potential and modular design benefits, it’s anticipated to be the primary to interrupt by way of the commercialization in the sector of controllable nuclear fusion, injecting new impetus into the surging improvement of the unreal intelligence period and the achievement of world sustainable improvement targets.
According to Xin Wang, a associate of GaoRong Venture Capital, GaoRong has been researching nuclear fusion for a number of years and solely made an funding when it met Nova Fusion. “Teacher Guo Houyang is a rare Chinese scientist with the deepest accumulation and the highest level in the FRC technical route. We also believe that the FRC – SMR technical route is a fusion technology with the hope of being the first to be implemented, and Nova has gathered the strongest domestic team in this technical route. We look forward to and wish Nova to make important contributions to the human fusion cause!”
Zhu Jia, a associate of Photosynthetic Venture Capital, additionally stated: “Controllable nuclear fusion is rapidly moving towards engineering and commercialization. Nova Fusion has obvious advantages in the differentiated path of FRC small fusion reactors and is expected to be the first to complete the closed-loop. We are optimistic that the company will move from China to the world in the future energy paradigm and become a company that defines the industry boundaries.”
So far, buyers have joined palms to make the biggest angel-round funding in nuclear fusion this 12 months.
On the Eve of Nuclear Fusion Commercialization, Aiming for the 100-million-degree Milestone Next Year
At this second, the strategic significance of nuclear fusion is self-evident.
Goldman Sachs analysis reveals that by 2030, the worldwide information heart energy demand is predicted to achieve 1130 TWh, equal to Japan’s annual electrical energy consumption. Traditional vitality can’t meet the high-power-density and 24/7 continuous energy provide necessities of AI information facilities. Therefore, controllable nuclear fusion has turn into the breakthrough to resolve this downside.
Sam Altman, the founding father of OpenAI, is a supporter of this view. He has talked about nuclear fusion many instances in public, believing that AI and nuclear vitality are carefully associated. In different phrases, in the second half of the AI competitors, it is all about vitality.
Investors have additionally talked about a standard view: In the long run, whoever can lead the brand new spherical of “energy revolution” could dominate the long run financial paradigm and worldwide guidelines. As a VC associate emphasised, the final word vitality, “controllable nuclear fusion,” will turn into the “killer weapon” in industrial and nationwide competitors, and will even exceed the historic contribution of the “steam engine.”
However, as is well-known, the technical threshold of controllable nuclear fusion is extraordinarily excessive, and the industrialization cycle is lengthy. It is destined to be a trigger spanning a number of generations. Since the primary hydrogen bomb take a look at in the world in 1952, human exploration of the peaceable use of fusion vitality has by no means stopped.
Now, the dream of nuclear fusion commercialization is changing into a actuality. The “2025 Global Fusion Industry Report” predicts that between 2030 and 2035, greater than 35 firms will construct industrial fusion demonstration energy crops that may produce web vitality, and one other 28 firms plan to connect with the ability grid for energy provide throughout this era.
Soon, a essential window interval has emerged. Helion Energy in the United States, as a consultant enterprise of the FRC technical route, has set a file of 150 million levels Celsius plasma temperature. Its first fusion energy plant below development, “Orion,” plans to provide 50 MW of electrical energy to Microsoft’s AI super-computing heart in 2028 and has signed an influence buy settlement of not less than 50 megawatts. OpenAI additionally plans to buy electrical energy from Helion, with a scale of as much as 50 gigawatts.
This undoubtedly marks that FRC – SMR is a mature technical route on the verge of commercialization, which is in line with Nova Fusion’s imaginative and prescient of “Fusion for AI & Beyond.”
Currently, the industrial creativeness of Nova Fusion’s FRC – SMR is additional increasing. A single reactor can output 50 – 100 MW of energy, with steady, steady, and versatile power-supply capabilities, that are extremely appropriate with high-density and high-reliability power-demand situations corresponding to large-scale industrial parks, good cities, and synthetic intelligence super-computing facilities. This scenario-based format creates a brand new path for the commercialization of fusion vitality.
Meanwhile, Nova Fusion’s goal blueprint is clearly rising: Achieve the primary plasma discharge by the tip of 2026; Become the primary home personal enterprise to attain a fusion temperature of 100 million levels in 2027, getting into the edge of nuclear fusion; Achieve the online vitality output of DT equal fusion (Q > 1) in 2029, laying a scientific and technological basis for the environment friendly acquisition of fusion vitality; Build the primary home small-scale distributed fusion demonstration energy plant in the primary half of the 2030s, attaining 50 – 100 MW-level industrial energy provide, completely matching the 24/7 continuous energy demand of AI information facilities.
Looking again, China’s fusion R & D has lengthy been dominated by the “national team.” Now, personal enterprises represented by Nova Fusion are coming to the forefront. In Guo Houyang’s view, the way forward for China’s fusion trade just isn’t a zero-sum recreation between the “national team” and “private forces,” however a coordinated operation between the “cornerstone” and the “shock troops.”
That is, the nationwide staff focuses on fundamental scientific analysis and elementary expertise R & D, aiming at large-scale centralized base-load vitality after 2040. Nova Fusion, with the FRC – SMR route because the core, exactly captures the distributed vitality hole introduced by AI computing energy. Relying on its technological first-mover benefit, top-notch worldwide staff, and powerful capital, it might rapidly iterate with the effectivity of a startup firm and be the primary to fill the strategic hole in the short-term clear vitality demand.
As Guo Houyang stated, “In China, we are forming a healthy and efficient industrial ecosystem – the national team lays the foundation, and the private team acts as the vanguard, jointly supporting the future of China’s nuclear fusion.” It is foreseeable that China will certainly have a spot in the worldwide fusion map.
This article is from the WeChat official account “Investment